Psalm 55

Give ear to my prayer, O God,
And do not hide Yourself from my supplication.
² Attend to me, and hear me;
I am restless in my complaint, and moan noisily,
³ Because of the voice of the enemy,
Because of the oppression of the wicked;
For they bring down trouble upon me,
And in wrath they hate me.

⁴ My heart is severely pained within me,
And the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
⁵ Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me,
And horror has overwhelmed me.
⁶ So I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest.
⁷ Indeed, I would wander far off,
And remain in the wilderness. Selah
⁸ I would hasten my escape
From the windy storm and tempest.”

⁹ Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues,
For I have seen violence and strife in the city.
¹⁰ Day and night they go around it on its walls;
Iniquity and trouble are also in the midst of it.
¹¹ Destruction is in its midst;
Oppression and deceit do not depart from its streets.

¹² For it is not an enemy who reproaches me;
Then I could bear it.
Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me;
Then I could hide from him.
¹³ But it was you, a man my equal,
My companion and my acquaintance.
¹⁴ We took sweet counsel together,
And walked to the house of God in the throng.

¹⁵ Let death seize them;
Let them go down alive into hell,
For wickedness is in their dwellings and among them.

¹⁶ As for me, I will call upon God,
And the Lord shall save me.
¹⁷ Evening and morning and at noon
I will pray, and cry aloud,
And He shall hear my voice.
¹⁸ He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me,
For there were many against me.
¹⁹ God will hear, and afflict them,
Even He who abides from of old. Selah
Because they do not change,
Therefore they do not fear God.

²⁰ He has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him;
He has broken his covenant.
²¹ The words of his mouth were smoother than butter,
But war was in his heart;
His words were softer than oil,
Yet they were drawn swords.

²² Cast your burden on the Lord,
And He shall sustain you;
He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.

²³ But You, O God, shall bring them down to the pit of destruction;
Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days;
But I will trust in You.

I am restless in my complaint, and moan noisily

You know when something’s bothering you and you complain about it to everyone? You go beyond letting off steam and just become annoying. And your friends, because they’re your friends, listen to you, but they can’t do anything about it, and probably think that you’re blowing it out of proportion. Just me? Well, God is like a super-best friend. He doesn’t care how annoying you get when you complain about your problems, and unlike your friends, He can actually do something to fix it.

Oh, that I had wings like a dove!

So, when your problems do get that bad, you don’t always want to actually solve them. You just want to get out of that situation. Whether you sprout wings and fly away or wiggle your nose and make it all better. What’s worse, the situation has bothered you so much that you start to wish that you never had to interact with people again, that you could go off and live like a hermit in the wilderness. 

But it was you, a man my equal

The only thing that could possibly make such a situation worse is when a key player is someone you trusted or liked or even just felt was a good person. You are angry with them for not upholding your expectations of them, and you’re just as angry at yourself for giving them those expectations. Maybe it’s someone you thought was living for God, who even went to church with you and who shared advice with you. What do you do when someone you thought was good wrongs you?

Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you

Even though we may perceive the hurt differently because of who was responsible, God doesn’t. Sure, He is going put the wrong-doers in their place, but it doesn’t really matter who did what to you. God is there to hold you up. “He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me” no matter who did it or what happened. We have to remember that God is in charge of punishing the wicked, and they will eventually get what’s coming to them, but we shouldn’t really hope for their destruction. That would be stooping to their level. Instead, we have to call on God and give all of our cares to Him. When we do, “He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.”